Cross-country comparison of foreign language curriculum in Germany, Spain and Turkey

Abstract

In an ever-increasing global world, foreign language teaching (FLT) has been in the agenda of many countries. The purpose of this study is to compare the FLT curriculum at compulsory education in Germany (Berlin) and Spain (Madrid) with the curriculum in Turkey. Qualitative in nature, the study is designed as a multiple (collective) case study. Maximum variation (heterogeneity) sampling, a purposeful sampling strategy, is used to compare the FLT curriculum in Germany and Spain with Turkey, aiming at capturing and describing common patterns accross a variety of cases. The results show that with the latest revisions in Turkey’s curriculum, the curriculum in three countries are similar to one another in terms of design, main philosophy, content, assessment and evaluation approach, as well as the language teaching approach. This paper concludes that the structural differences depending on the language family could be one of the reasons behind Turkey’s situation in FLT. Keywords: Comparative education, curriculum, foreign language teaching, primary education, cross-country.